Microsoft

The Desktop in Windows 8 is little more than an afterthought, by design. I've got the evidence that shows why Microsoft hopes to kill it off as soon as it can.

Microsoft's Azure cloud infrastructure and development service experienced a serious outage on WednesdayMicrosoft's Azure cloud infrastructure and development service experienced a serious outage on Wednesday, with the system's service management component going down worldwide starting at 1:45 a.m. GMT.

"We are experiencing an issue with Windows Azure service management. Customers will not be able to carry out service management operations," Microsoft said in an initial message on the outage on its Azure service dashboard.

A number of stories about a Windows 8 kill switch have appeared on the Web, each with its own odd and ominous tone. The blogosphere has gone berserk with all sorts of menacing commentary, such as the following from the Vigilent Citizen:

As Microsoft released the Windows 8 Consumer Preview today, it also published a product guide for business users of the operating system. In the guide, it was revealed that the ARM-based version of Windows 8 will lack some of the management features available to the version running on PCs—a limitation that may make the mobile version of the operating system a little less attractive to large enterprises out of the gate.

There have been some more whispers on the next-gen Xbox grapevine.

Apparently a developer summit happened for the console this week, attended by a Crytek dev who leaked the existence of the meeting by a tweet (which has since been deleted).

Microsoft Corp unveils the first widely available test version of Windows 8 on Wednesday, giving the public the first chance to try out the slick, new-look operating system it hopes will restore the company's fading tech supremacy.

Windows 8, as the first Microsoft operating system compatible with low-power microprocessors designed by ARM Holdings Plc, will run on tablets as well as desktops and laptops.

Google, Microsoft and Netflix have proposed changes to the HTML5 standard that could see DRM added to HTML5 videos.

In a document titled "Encrypted Media Extensions v0.1", which was submitted to W3C's HTML Working Group, the group responsible for handling HTML5 standards, the web giants called for DRM to be added to HTML5 streaming videos, in the same way DRM is available for Flash videos.

Microsoft has launched an all-out assault on Google's privacy policies, but when it comes to protecting your privacy, Microsoft's Web site lags behind both Google and Apple, says the privacy organization PrivacyChoice.

Nokia officially announced the Lumia 610, a budget Windows Phone handset, at Mobile World Congress Sunday. The phone's hardware is pretty bare-bones, but it will lead the charge for the updated, low-end-optimized Windows Phone OS that Microsoft hopes will help it conquer new territory like China.

The Lumia 610 has a 3.7-inch 480×800 screen, only 256MB of RAM, 8GB of storage, and an 800MHz processor. The phone also has a 5-megapixel camera and a shiny plastic bezel, and is set to debut in Europe for only €189 ($254) off-contract in the second quarter of this year.

Microsoft has performed an about-turn in India and revealed that a recent hack of its online store may have compromised credit card details belonging to customers in the country.

When the Microsoft India Store was hacked earlier this month, the company emailed its customers to assure them that “databases storing credit card details and payment information were not affected during this compromise”. However, it now appears that this is incorrect.